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Health care remains a pivotal, and often controversial, issue these days – especially at the height of this political season. But amidst all the debate over who does, or should, pay for health care, an increasing number of Americans have found it difficult to even get face time with a physician. NPR recently reported that 20% of people who responded to a recent poll said they were forced to visit a walk-in clinic or emergency room because their primary care physician was too busy to schedule an appointment.

This same dynamic has hit close to home at New Belgium Brewing, so much so that it sparked a conversation between Evie Tyrrell, the company’s benefits steward, and Christine Perich, New Belgium’s CEO. Both were concerned about how the growing healthcare provider shortage in Northern Colorado, where the company is headquartered, was affecting the health and well-being of their coworkers and their families. “While our community has many great doctors, quite a few are not taking new patients or they are difficult to get to,” says Perich. “It can also be challenging to develop a deep connection with your doctor in a traditional clinic or family practice due in part to the volume of patients they see.”

Perich and Tyrrell wondered how they might solve that dilemma. Eventually, after much analysis and gathering input from coworkers, New Belgium came up with a creative solution: they could create their own healthcare clinic right on site.

“We decided we could design a clinic setting where coworkers had better access to a physician,” says Tyrrell. In other words, the company boldly decided that they should hire a full-time doctor who would run a healthcare clinic on site at their brewery.

Enter Doctor Patti Palagi.

Doctor Patti, as she is affectionately known at New Belgium these days, had been practicing family medicine in Fort Collins since the 1990s until she moved to Seattle a few years ago. She admits to being a bit surprised one day when she received a call from Perich, whom she had known from her time in Fort Collins. “Christine said, ‘We want you to come back and take care of our people,’” says Palagi. “Who can turn down an opportunity to work for one of the best companies in the world?”

Palagi says she decided to take the job because she was inspired to help provide the kind of care to New Belgium’s coworkers that so many of the rest of us can have such a hard time accessing these days. “People don’t feel cared for anymore,” she says.

Palagi joined New Belgium in March of 2015 as a fulltime coworker. Over the past year, she has been working from an off-site office in Fort Collins until the new clinic at the brewery is finished later this year. And it’s clear she has already had an impact on New Belgium’s coworkers and their families: the number of urgent care visits are down while more and more people, including many coworkers who work remotely, are seeing or talking to Palagi on a regular basis. She’s also managing a tobacco cessation program and run a breakout session at the company’s annual gathering last summer on the topic of developing a healthy relationship with alcohol. “I hope that people feel that it’s a safe place and have confidence in the care they are receiving,” says Palagi.